When the Boar Rushed Forth So Wrathfully
by EverleighBain
Summary: Imladris. Midwinter. A hunt, a boy, a bunch of horses, a bunch of hounds, a bunch of Elves, and Glorfindel overseeing the whole wide parade, of course, because this little story is a Christmas present for Levade, who first made him come alive to me. Story completed: will update regularly.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: What do you want for Christmas? I asked her. Glorfindel! she replied._

_Brave lady she is; she writes the best version around and still asked me to try my hand at it. I hope very much your firefly muse approves, my dear. This was written with much affection for you both._

_In honor of my dear friend Levade (whose gift this story is) I would like to devote the beginning of each chapter to recommending a story of hers. Today is for Comrades in Arms, one of the very first fanfictions I ever read, whereupon I promptly decided that Glorfindel was fantastic and utterly beyond my reach. And also that I needed to be friends with this author. What do you know, here we are years later still laughing at one another!_

_Give it a read, it's short and utterly lovely. And leave her a nice review, too, if you please._

_All recognizable elements belong to J.R.R. Tolkien and no profit was made from the writing of this story._

* * *

**I**

**Enter the Players**

At the mouth of the Valley they stood arrayed in splendor, the armament of Imladris, liveried in the blue of final dusk and emblazoned upon the breast with the mithril and white gems of the House of the Mariner. Their spear-tips burned beneath the eye of the sun like the high white spire of Caradhras. Their great grey destriers stood black in the mane and bold in the eye; they steamed and blew smoking breaths and packed the snow beneath their dark, feathered feet and waited, trembling, as if for war.

Princely at the vanguard rode the Master's radiant, mirrored sons. No helms they wore, but diadems of sapphire, and their armor was bright and burnished, and one in heraldry bore the standard of the Guard stood in his stirrup, and one carried slung beneath his arm an ivory horn set round with bands of silver.

Between them was Glorfindel, Glorfindel wreathed in gold, Glorfindel with the sunlight springing from his mail and warm upon the white drape of his cloak, West-illumined Glorfindel, Glorfindel with his eyes alit and jewel-fired as the snow, Glorfindel all but thrumming like a plucked string in the clear midwinter slant of Anor's rays.

Glorfindel with his head back, laughing.

It was this sound ringing down the river and not the clarion call of the horns that welcomed the High King of Arnor as he came across the Ford.

Valandil he was, Isildur's son, and long had he ruled in wisdom and in peace, and at last the hand of Time had come to thread his hair with silver, though it had not begun to stoop his back. Ever kind to his fathers, so it had been to him, and once again he rode in strength on the eve of Mettarë to feast in the house of his friend, and the friend of his father, Elrond Halfelven.

But as the King shipped into view up the bank of the Bruinen on his own high-headed steed, Glorfindel's laugh faded. He traded a quick look with the knight at his right hand, for the one upon the left was too pleased with his own jesting and with Glorfindel's answering merriment to have kept watch for whom they waited upon. Yet even he read quickly the change in bearing and when Glorfindel with a bare brush of his spur sent his stallion leaping for the river, his tandem consorts were a mere beat behind.

The Elves drove to a halt before the High King of Arnor, the feet of their horses spitting snow.

"Hail Valandil, Lord of the North!" rang out the clear voice of Glorfindel in the high tongue of the Elves and of the faithful men of Númenor. "With joy we have awaited your coming, but if you have met with trouble let us ride with you to allay it. Where now are your courtesans?"

With a wry twist of his brow Valandil glanced over his shoulder, not at all the princes and retainers of Annúminas, not at ladies splendid in their trimmings and furs, not at the burgeoning breadth of his entire joyous household spread out behind him beneath the banners of the King, come together as they did each year to join the Elves of Imladris in their Midwinter revelry.

Instead, as if he were no higher than a hamlet lord, the King of the North led only loyal Ronyondur his guard and footman, and a squire with a line of coursers at one hand and a string of hounds at the other, and at his near flank a stripling boy astride a neat bay palfrey, the King's own goshawk jessed and hooded upon his arm.

Valandil turned back to the Elves and smiled in the eyes and answered, "Peace, lord. No trouble with our party. Forgive me that I sent no word beforehand; I have indulged an old man's whims and wrecked a long tradition. We shall not flood the House with revelers this year. But still, I would that you would have us, if only for the hunt."

"More feasting to go round," laughed Glorfindel, now in unceremonious Sindarin, and swung down as the King did and met him and embraced him like a brother.

"Hail, my lords," the King said then to the sons of Elrond. A grin broke over his grave and noble face. "You look all kitted up for a good scrap."

"Always a merrier scrap alongside the Men of the West," returned the younger with a grin of his own. The elder gripped the proffered arm and smiled and said nothing, but his eyes were narrow with laughter unloosed.

"Ronyondur you know," the King said next, as the Man behind him dipped his head in stately greeting, "who would not let an old fool wander on his own in the woods. Tiuco is his good squire."

"And this one," said Glorfindel, from where he had crossed to stand at the shoulder of the bay mare. He lay his gauntleted hand upon her black mane at the withers, the youngster astride her somewhat wide in the eye. "A wild man you found in the woods somewhere?"

"Arantar's boy," the King said, and his voice had warmed and lowered with love. "At last we have him again, up from Osgiliath. Tarcil, my lad. Here is Glorfindel, General of Imladris, and the lords Elladan and Elrohir, Elrond's sons. Greet them: they are my friends and stoutest allies, and may the One be kind, they shall be yours as well."

"_Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo_," murmured the boy, and then beamed like a lighthouse when the lord of grander ages reached up to clasp his forearm as if he were a man grown.

* * *

_A/N ii: It is a canonical divergence that Tarcil son of Arantar was born before Valandil died: for the purposes of this story I moved his arrival back about 40 years._


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: This is not, in fact, a long story, but I have divided it up into chapters for the sole purpose of having room to recommend a different story of Levade's each chapter. _

_Today, I commend to you Nor Bid the Stars Farewell, featuring her trademark Glorfindel, very young and bright and brilliantly rendered Elladan and Elrohir, and a couple of Mirkwood princes. It is a fine adventure story filled with Levade's characteristic wit and humor, and her wise insight into the heart and how it deals with vicious grief and loss-all spun together with her warm, gorgeous prose. Glorfindel is simply luminous in this: wise mentor, faithful friend, fierce protector. If you need a good Glorfindel fix, you won't find a better one than this._

* * *

**II**

**Tarcil**

Tomorrow in the triumph of the hunt they would feast, but tonight there were orders of venery to be made in the kennels and stables beneath Glorfindel's watchful eye. The King joined the Master to ascend to the house and to mulled wine and fireside seats and unhurried conversation, picked up no doubt to the beat where they had left off a year before.

But down below was the muster, and in the midst of it, a boy.

"Stay here," said Ronyondur with curtness, steering Tarcil to stand near a great oaken grainbin set into the wall, "and make no nuisance of yourself." Together with Tiuco he went out through the far door to feed and bed the hounds.

For a few minutes Tarcil did his best to blend in with the stable wall, picturing a brown moth with bepatterned wings so unmoving against the wood it disappears. Feeling conspicuous still, as an Imladhrim soldier passed and nodded to him, he pressed into the nook between the wall and the grainbox and slid down to sit crosslegged on the floor.

Elves. Ever busy, ever laughing. The Lord Glorfindel among them like a… like a lantern, the boy supposed. Lighting up the corner of your eye even when you were not looking right at him. He did not shout but still you never did not hear him as he gave his assembling instructions to the throng. He would lead the hunt tomorrow, great-grandfather had said.

The boy's first hunt, or at least his first at hound. Rabbits and gamehens upon the Pelennor counted but a little, though still those little victories had gladdened his heart. They would have broken his mother's; she was a gentle soul and would eat no meat, for the thought of harvesting it sickened her.

Even had it not, she was riddled with fear for him. She had borne his father a firstborn, this he knew, and somehow that elder son had died a half-score years before he had come along, though none would tell Tarcil the story. He learned quickly not to ask, for the wound it opened in her spirit again.

She had not wished for him to come. Not on this strange year when the King would allow no party with him. But his great-grandfather had insisted, and to Tarcil's surprise his father had deigned to please the old man instead of his wife.

It had been a good three weeks.

But now great-grandfather was gone with the Master and Ronyondur had left him here among these fair and unfamiliar faces and he felt he should be helping, but for Ronyondur's command to make no nuisance of himself. There were no other boys here that he had seen; he did not know what might be expected of him and could not tell by watching.

He was not as unobtrusive as he thought, for the next passer-by did not pass by, but sank down beside him upon the floor and offered in one lean Elven hand a tiny tart, adorned o'er the top with a minuscule, sugared snowflake.

Tarcil glanced up. For a breath he did not know his new companion, but then recognition swept him. Though gone were the fine-wrought coronet and gleaming, sunlicked mail and silver-broidered livery. Dark hair now braided back instead of fiercely loosed about his face. Linen shirt of holly-red and leather gambeson and tall boots well-worn in the creases.

"Better take it, and make it disappear," said this person, jiggling the tart. "It was not honestly come by."

Tarcil took it, and disappear it did, as he had not been able to. It tasted of honey and blackberries and summer sunlight, if one could taste such a thing. He used his fingertip to dab a dust of crumbs up from his breechleg, while the knight beside him produced a scroll of leather and rolled it out upon the floor. Inside were files and whetstones and a sharpening dowel arrayed in their line. The boy saw then his companion had brought with him a spear, laid now in its great length along the floorboards, its head a lovely thing, silver-etched and broad in the leaf. The pole was lashed in twain at the waist by a cross-haft as long as the boy's arm. His companion hefted the thing by the neck and swung it out into the aisle so it would lay the other way to sharpen. Glorfindel passing by had to skip over the swinging haft or be struck across the shins.

"Ware," he growled, and gave the seated knight a prod in the haunch with the toe of his boot.

The Master's son, unfazed, flicked up a final tart. The Lord Glorfindel whipped it from the air and devoured it in one bite and continued on his errand.

The spear lay now across Tarcil's lap as well, and his hand of its own accord curled around the haft. Upon closer inspection the wood was graven as well, portrayals of venery in miniature, hawks and hounds and horses at the chase, and all among them, boars. Boars, bristle-backed and bellowing, pawing at the snow, backed into the hollows, gouging at the alaunts, tusked and pin-eyed and mighty in the girth. Boars so lifelike he half-expected them to shake their heads at his approaching fingertip. Boars in illustration as tall at the shoulder as a man.

"Are they that large, truly?" the boy asked in a quiet voice, not looking up.

But the answer was slow in coming, and at last he glanced to find grey eyes slanted to him. They were very bright and very keen. They seemed to weigh him for a moment.

At last the rejoining query came, "If they are, what would you do?"

Tarcil pondered, but not for long. "I hope I would do my duty," he answered, and rubbed his knuckle against the groove of a carven holly leaf.

The Master's son accepted this with a single nod and began to whet the spearhead, first moistening the stone with a quick licked thumb. Tarcil had seen Ronyondur spit straight upon his, but he could not envision this warrior resorting to such a thing.

"Have you…" Tarcil began, but faded off. He was not to make a nuisance of himself, after all.

"Never one so great as this," came the answer nonetheless, a finger reaching over to tap a carven pig as it speared up a wailing, writhing hound on its great tusks. "My first little more than a shoat, a scorestone dressed. And still…" the Elven knight leaned in a little closer. "…I had to go and vomit in the bushes, after, I was so full in the belly with nerves."

The boy gaped at this admission.

The whetting began again. "Your grandfather would remember."

He remembered most things.

They did not speak for a while, while the edges of the spearhead grew white and keen. Tarcil fitted his hand around the juncture of the crosshaft , like a spar athwart a mast. "I have not seen a spear like this," he admitted. "What is the crosspiece for?"

"To halt the charge," came the mild answer. "But one must still stand fast." His companion raised the spearhead to the light to peer at, and then pushed it backwards by the throat until the blade lay heavy upon Tarcil's knee. "Test the edge, and tell me: will it serve?"

He did, with a scrape of his thumb across, not along like a baby to slice himself. One of the first things a boy learned, how to gauge a blade-edge. Even done correctly, the thing nicked up a flap of thumbprint.

"It will serve," said Tarcil.

"Good. With luck we will make use of it, tomorrow."

* * *

_A/N ii: It is a canonical divergence that Arantar had an older son than Tarcil who was somehow killed._

_Thank you for reading! More to come!_


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: A little chapter, close on the heels of yesterday's, to compensate for my long update interval._

_Today I would like to commend to you The Burden of Hope, by Levade. An admission of bias: it was written for me! But that does not diminish its elegance, nor Glorfindel's lively wit, both in his wise advice for Aragorn fresh home to the Valley after a fateful month in Lorien, and to a moment of mischief toward the end of the tale. As ever Levade writes him with utter believability: in her hands he is both glorious and lofty, and also the kind of warm fellow one could envision a scruffy Ranger seeking out for romantic (or otherwise) advice. Do give it a read if you have not already, and tell her I sent you. _

_All recognizable elements belong to J.R.R. Tolkien._

* * *

**III**

**Elrohir**

Taraven was with him, and so they had trotted leagues without the need of talk. The horses crisp in the gait and lively in the eye, loving as they ever did to travel in the clear cold. They had run across no spoor but as they came over the ridge and down into a thicketed copse that furred the belly of the vale, the lymers began to plow the snow with their snouts, whimpering and worrying and plunging at the leads.

The trail into the thicket was trodden to the mud with the tracks of deer and hare and little hunters, but as the hounds grew ever fretful they found them, cloven and close together and carved deeply into the dark loam.

Elrohir, now dismounted, plucked up a twig to see the print more clearly. He aligned his hands beside it for scale, fingertips to wrist, and gave a long, low whistle.

"Near as long as the pair of them together. And look here…" he stood and tugged a truss of bristles from the rough bark of a hornbeam, caught a little above his own eyeline. The dogs were all but wailing now. The horses uneasy and stiff in the legs.

"Up with you," said Taraven, older by a half-yen and making good use of a tone filched from the General Glorfindel. "We know where he will be tomorrow. But we should be away from here."

Elrohir looked up grinning. "If we are reading the signs aright…"

"_I_ am, I know not what creature _you_ are thinking to quarry. A fieldvole, down there on your knees."

"Direboar," said the Master's son, his eyes alit with hunter's lust.

"Get on your horse, Elrohir." The tone was sharp in earnest this time, and Elrohir, laughing, did as he was bid. Taraven had the hounds at hand and drove Elrohir's horse before him with the loose end of the tether for a lash. Together they lunged back up the hillside and Taraven halted them only when they were well away from the wooded copse and whatever dwelt within it that had so quickened the dogs.

"Father speaks of them, from the Old Days," Elrohir said with reverence, when they had returned to the House hours later and were giving their report to the Lord of the Hunt. "There are few left."

"One fewer by tomorrow," said Glorfindel, twisting in gloved fingers the long, black bristles Elrohir had dispensed to him. "They are not a resource to be stewarded, but a blemish to blot off the earth. A sour note in the Song. I mislike that there is one come so near the Valley." He turned to his hunters and his flamelit eyes were stern. "You will not drink tonight."

"Yes, lord," came the scattered answer, and to a man they did not.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Today I heartily recommend you go read Levade's __Things That Have Not Yet Come to Pass__. Seriously. It's the singular most unsettling and unforgettable treatment of the immediate aftermath of Celebrian's torment I have ever come across. I can't say more for spoiler's sake. Trust me though, you will not regret giving it a try, it's really gorgeous and heartrending and her treatment of the characters is so spot-on._

_On we go! Thank you to everyone who has been following along!_

* * *

**IV**

**Tarcil**

Tarcil had been told to sleep, for morning would come quickly, but each time he tried he dreamt of waking too late and staggering out into the yard to find he had been left behind. Or sometimes he could not find his saddle, or his horse, or kept getting lost down another long hall. Once he dreamt that he had been sent to retrieve the great boarspear and kept finding bits of it broken all over the house.

But the one that woke him lastingly was of the boar itself, taller at the withers than a horse, coming forth from a black and brambled thicket with smoke rolling from its shriveled snout, its tusks bloodlet already while the hounds screamed all around him, and only when the thing down its head to split him up the bowel did he startle awake, and pant for a while, staring at the cold stars through the skylight.

Tiuco upon the other bed was snoring off his mead. Ronyondur as ever was in the room next door asleep across the King's feet. He knew already that the door would make no sound if swung. The stars out the window crept higher.

Hosen lined with rabbitfur. Thick woolen stockings, and a shirt of watered silk, and a knitted tunic from the highland goats so prized for the warmth of their wool. Fleece-and-leather gambeson. Cote and cloak and mantle and hood. Gloves, and stuffed into his pocket, mittens. And lastly the boots. They had chafed him on the anklebones when first they had set out, but now they fit him as well as his own skin.

He would not get a chance to come back. The hunt would begin early, this he knew, and plucked a golden apple from the basin upon the stand. His knife he lifted but did not yet don, for fear it would jangle and he would be exposed.

He was not going far. Only to the stables. He would not outsleep the others, then, but would be ready, Súretal saddled, when the time came to depart.

The lanterns in the aisle were low when he slipped around the stable door and pressed it closed behind him. So silent he had been, like a shadow's shadow, no sound at all, his years of practice paying off, for all his life he had dwelt as a single child in a household of preoccupied adults. He was as quick and stealthy as a stoat.

Or so he would have claimed the moment before a voice behind him rumbled, "Bed is the place for boys at such an hour."

Tarcil whirled. The Lord Glorfindel observed him, his shoulder leant against the doorjamb, his arms crossed high over his chest. Though his voice had been a hair short of reproving, his eyes were nothing of the sort. They were bright and full to brimming with amusement.

"My lord," the boy said, bowing hastily, his heart still aflail against his ribs. "I… I could not sleep."

"Nor I."

"I thought… I feared I would be left…"

"Left behind."

"Aye."

The keen gaze of Glorfindel pierced him, and he might have broke for the door and returned at a bolt to his bed, left behind or no, except now the General stood between him and escape. Then the chance was taken from him altogether, for the great lord pushed his shoulder off the jamb and in two quick strides had Tarcil's nape beneath his hand. Down the aisle they went, that grip by no means cruel, but still altogether unyielding. Past the saddleroom, past the King's horse, and Súretal in her stall, to the end of that long aisle, and through an oaken door into a tiny office. A fire in the grate, a lamp on the table, the smells of oil and leather and pine. A carven chair to be levered into. All of this too quick for his night-muddled mind to make much sense of. He thought he should probably be alarmed, for often when a grown-up was so brusque it spelled misfortune for a boy.

But then a tankard was in his fist and the smell of whatever it held made his jaw pang with desire. He sipped. Cider, spiced to linger on the tongue, just hot enough to keep you from swigging it. The General drew around the other chair and assumed it, his portion steaming in his hand. He propped his booted ankle upon one knee and took a long sip of his own.

"Now," said Glorfindel. "You can tell me what you hope tomorrow will bring."

A strange question, but now that it was asked Tarcil found it worth considering. He hoped…. to ride hard after the hounds and not hear words of caution. He hoped to get mud on his clothes—or blood—and not be scolded for it. He hoped to be freed from his great-grandfather's side, for he knew the old King would follow ceremoniously and leave the killing to the young and fey. He hoped to be… a man. Or the start of one, at least. And he dearly hoped he would not turn and run, if it came time to hold the line.

Aloud he said only, "I have never seen a boar, alive."

The General did not speak to this, not for a long time, but drew his cider and regarded the boy. After minutes he said, "You are what, eleven?"

Tarcil glanced up. "Yes, sir."

"Your father and grandfather had joined us thrice apiece by the time they were eleven."

He felt his cheeks burn and had to duck. "Yes, lord," he answered, and drank again, for the tankard was large enough to hide behind.

"Do the princes not hunt in Osgiliath?"

"They do, lord."

"But not you."

Tarcil could only shake his head and cast down his eyes in shame.

"Because someone has forbidden it, or because you do not have the stomach?"

He could not help it; his outrage leapt right out of his eyes and out of his mouth. Too late to snatch back the snarled oath, he cast himself forward and came to one knee on the floor, a posture of penitent fealty. Here was his great-grandfather's friend, a prince in his own right, commander of legions, and kind with the cider, no less, and he was only a boy, and had erupted in his anger.

"Forgive me," Tarcil pleaded, pressing his forehead hard against his knee.

Strong hands stood him to his feet. "Peace, youngster," the Lord Glorfindel said. "I intended no offense, and you likewise gave none." In a moment he was pressed firmly back down into his seat. The tankard in his hand again. The General stayed standing, but leant his hip against the rim of the desk. "Now take a good drink," he went on. "and then explain yourself. Why so hot off the flint to defend your stomach?"

For a while Tarcil thought to refuse completely, and hold fast his tongue. But he was not belligerent in the heart, Arantar's child. Too much wisdom in his line for that. He did not know many things, but he knew an offer of fellowship when he heard it. This lord of the Eldar had greeted him like a man. A man would give a goodly answer.

"My mother is very afraid," he said at last, "afraid to let me learn the sword or lance, but mostly she is afraid to let me hunt." His voice lowered, for the next would be harder to confess. "Even so, she is not so afraid as me. You were right, I do not have the stomach."

"It is no shameful thing to feel afraid."

"It is her fault I am," said Tarcil bitterly. "She would have me in the nursery still if she could. My father killed a wolf when he was nine, with a knife! The pelt is still in the commonroom."

For a while there was no sound but the gnashing of the fire.

"Know you the story of Astaldion?" said Glorfindel at length.

Long repetition had trained him to shy away from the mere mention of his brother's name, but here in this warm room, far from the quick malaises of his mother, upon the fair tongue of Glorfindel, whose mouth was so often full of laughter, it seemed safe to hear as it never did at home. But he did not know the story, and so he shook his head.

"He was a brave boy."

"You knew him?"

"He fostered here beneath the Master, as the sons of your line have since the War. Though I believe your mother did not wish it for him, and their separation grieved her."

Tarcil nodded.

"He was slain at the hunt."

Tarcil's head jerked up. The lord's eyes were on him, steadily, and with gentleness. "Sixteen he was," he went on, "and foundered in the deep snow, and could not raise his spear in time. I was near to him, and Elladan, when the boar rushed forth so wrathfully." His face did not change. No shadow crossed it. But his voice was for a moment soft with sorrow. "Not near enough."

It could have been a tale from another Age, for Tarcil had not known him, but still the bare-sketched story felt like a gouge beneath the ribs.

"And Elladan killed the boar," Tarcil finished in a whisper, recalling like a clear note an earlier conversation. His spearnicked thumb still stung when he rubbed his finger over it.

"Elladan killed the boar," Glorfindel echoed in agreement.

Again, a span of silence. It was Glorfindel who broke it at last. "If you would take my counsel, Son of the West, I would give it."

"I will take it," the boy said solemnly.

"Carry not your ire toward your mother with you on the morrow. You are not a coward; or at the least you have had no chance to prove whether you are or not. Tomorrow may bring it. But cowardice is one of those temptations that feast on other evils. If you hear it crouching at your door, do not feed it unforgiveness through the keyhole."

The General crossed to the door then and took down a cloak from a hook beside it and snapped it out to billow flat on the floor before the hearth.

"I will wake you, when it is time," he said to Tarcil, and rousted him out of his chair, and sat for a while watching the fire until the boy slept and dreamt no more.

* * *

_A/N ii: Astaldion son of Arantar is a noncanonical character dreamed up for the purposes of this story._


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: This evening I commend to you Fields of Gold, by my good friend Levade. She labored over this novel-length story for many years and finished it at last in 2015. It features, of course, Glorfindel in all his glory, and his *cough* friend Bronwe, a wood-elf healer and one of my favorite OFC's of all time. Romance and adventure, both beautifully realized. Highly recommended!_

_Short chapter. Longer one tomorrow. Thank you for reading!_

* * *

**V**

**Glorfindel**

Not dawn, not yet. But the bustling had already begun. Glorfindel first had a boy to rouse; he returned to the office and crouched at the hearth and shook the young prince's shoulder. Tarcil was stumbling after him before he was fully awake.

A smaller group than most years, for at Elrohir's report Glorfindel had pronounced the ladies and larkers would await the staghunt on the following day. In the lamplit dark of early winter morning the hunters of the Valley were nearer to warriors, set in the mouth.

Tarcil had shrank back from their milling, spying no familiar faces, for the King had not come down yet from the House, and Ronyondur was in the kennels. He was trying to become one with the wall slats once again when Glorfindel turned back suddenly, and finding the boy no longer at his elbow he backtracked down the hall and snared Tarcil's arm and towed him to the center of the stable. He whistled sharply as a shrike and all around them the hunters ceased their saddling and attended to the Master of the Hunt.

"Elrohir will lead us to where they found the trail," said Glorfindel. "You bowmen at the flanks." He raised his hand against the swell of protest. "You will have your sport, and your quarry at the spear, but we will take no chances until we know for certain what we are up against. Pair off, and keep your fellow close. No one hunts alone today; if the scouts are right, we may have our hands full." He searched the crowd and found the one he sought and beckoned with his eyes, even as he spoke words of dismissal to the rest. In a moment a tall warrior in a red shirt stood beside them. Glorfindel turned Tarcil to him by the arm.

"You will serve Elladan as his squire today," he said. "This is my charge, and the charge of your grandfather. He is your liege until he releases you, and you will obey him in letter and spirit."

"Yes, my lord," the boy answered, the weight of this keeping him solemn in the mouth. His eyes were already halfway to the stars with delight.

Elladan's own regarded the General for a long and somber moment. Glorfindel met them without flinching. Then he smiled, and spoke without speech into that fair Halfelven mind a short phrase, lit all around the edges with warmth, and pride, and fondness. _Do not be afraid_.

He clapped Tarcil on the shoulder and departed crisply to his own preparations, brushing past Elladan's crimson sleeve.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Gofi and the Balrog! (why won't this website let me hyperlink? It would make this commendation project simpler for everyone…) It's a flawless little oneshot and you must read it. Go! Quickly now! Don't forget to review!_

_Thank you everyone for sticking with this story, and for the very kind feedback!_

* * *

**VI**

**Tarcil**

The Lord Elladan turned and looked down at him.

"Have you a knife?"

"Yes, lord."

"Gird it in a handy place. Not your pocket. There are oats there in the bin; your mare will need them for the long trot. When she is grained and saddled, attend me in the yard."

Tarcil made a swift obeisance and dashed to do as he was bid.

Outside it was still dark beyond the tall lanterns that splashed warm light upon the snow. Lord Elladan had kept to the fringes of the assembly and Tarcil spotted him easily as he led Súretal out into the biting cold. The sky was clear with stars but for the western edge where they were blotted out, and Tarcil knew that it would snow soon. He could feel it when he breathed in; the air was filled with damp.

He could hear the low voice of his grandfather away somewhere to the right speaking with Lord Glorfindel, and the weeping of the hounds as they strained at their tethers, and the hushed discourse of men already stealthy in their hearts, the huntsman's talk, soft under the mantle of the dark. The horses blew and jangled all across the yard. His came alongside Elladan, who reached out and judged his saddle-girth, and tugged it a hole tighter.

"Your hands are warm enough?"

"Yes, lord."

"Up you get, then."

Up the valley they climbed, Elrohir at the lead, as the winter wildland began to grey around them. Glorfindel and the High King came behind him, and Ronyondur at Valandil's heels, and all the eager hounds towing at their handlers, but after that there was no more formality, and they fell by twos and threes in whatever order suited them, the footmen at the rear, bringing up the long spears. All along the line rippled the quiet talk and laughter of the Elves. Lord Elladan took up a place halfway along the column. Tarcil rode at his left hand, posting easily the long trot of the horses and gazing round in wonder as the high glens of the mountains blanketed and garlanded with fresh snow crept out into the daylight all around them.

They paused for a few moments when the sun lanced over the mountain's shoulder. Elladan bade him air his horse's back, and passed him a roasted partridge breast wrapped in oiled paper, and made him finish it to the last, and drink a little, and told him they would eat no more 'til evening.

Near noon the hounds began to moan. The alaunts with their great bone-crushing jaws plunged at the leashes and broke out snapping and snarling at their tethermates. The slender gaze-hounds trembled in the flanks.

Glorfindel nodded once, and Elrohir raised his white horn to his lips and with a ringing blast the hunt began.

Away they leapt, the baying pack of Rivendell, the voices of the houndsmen driving them on with wild cries. Fast the horsemen followed. The lymers gave yet no wail of quarry but tongued the covert call, seeking out the trail of the boar; then only would the hunters dismount and take up their spears and travel on afoot. At the edge of the wood the hounds split—the hunters splitting with them—to lay their snouts to greater swaths of forest.

Lord Elladan broke off to tail the smaller pack, together with a half-dozen other riders fanned out through the trees. Shadowing the swift son of Elrond left Tarcil lightheaded with speed: the black deadfalls loomed up in the mist but Elladan took them without drawing the bridle, his grey horse peregrine-quick on the lift and speeding onward through the landings, never once snubbing the jump, its dark eye bright for battle in the snowswathed gloom of the trees. Having to slow for three jumps in a row, and skirt around a fourth the bay mare shied at—nearly unseating him—made Tarcil fall behind apace. Only then did the knight of the Valley turn and canter back to him.

While the houndsman re-rallied the dogs and the horses blew forth great thunderheads of steam, Elladan swung from his stallion and came to Tarcil's side and chivvied his foot free of the stirrup. With quick, sure hands he shortened the leather a pair of notches and ducked beneath the bay mare's neck to perform the same on the other side. He drove Tarcil's boot back into place while the boy bent down to reinstate the other.

"Stand up and put your nose in her mane, when you feel her gather for the leap," Elladan said, and patted him briskly on the leg when Tarcil nodded.

The warrior sprang into the stirrup and soared to his seat and wheeled away with a featherlight brush of his spur, as the dogs took up the call again, and the huntsman blew them on with clear notes of the horn.

It was a good instruction; before Tarcil's head had snapped back at each jump but now with practice through the timber he found the low crouch in the shortened stirrups caused him to sail with her, and she did not refuse again, but flew after the grey horse like a falcon. The cold wind whipped the boy's breath away and the cold air thrashed his eyes and with the music of the hounds drawing them on like the ring of trumpets bidding them to war they raced among the trees and for a while his heart was a gull's heart high and loose above a boundless sea.

But then Súretal stumbled, and came up and ran and stumbled again, and her shoe rang on the snowy rocks, and Tarcil drew her to a halt, though she plunged beneath his hand to sail onward. His heart grown heavy now, he slithered down her side and raised her forefoot by the fetlock to see the shoe askew and hanging off three nails, the hoof-wall broken deeply away at the corner. He could have wept for the injustice, and nearly did when away through the forest came the bright descanting horncall that sang of a fresh trail found.

A hand reached past him to lift the bay mare's hoof. She was settled now, her fellow returned to her; Elladan's stallion stood tranquil and steaming as his rider bent to see the wrenched shoe.

"I am sorry," Tarcil said, near wild with regret, "I checked them this morning, they are a fresh set, I swear it, I am sorry my lord, I have ruined the hunt for you—"

Lord Elladan's hand found his shoulder to grip; he shook it gently. "Peace, lad, it has happened to the best of us. She has not bowed the tendon, and for that you should be glad. She is a brave little horse." Tarcil's gaze hung low still, and Elladan squeezed his shoulder. "There will always be more boars," he said with understanding in his voice.

Perhaps not, not for him, and the fear of it stung him bitterly. Elladan went to his own horse and returned with a bright little nipper and with it bit off the clinches and pried the shoe free. She was shod for snow with a plate of fitted rawhide to keep the ice from packing and these things apiece Elladan slid into the boy's saddlebag.

The houndsman and the riders with him had slowed, and now they called back, and Elladan answered and bade them go on. "We will walk a while," he said to Tarcil, "'til it is certain she is sound to bear you."

They could hear the second party, faint and distant, but now the voices of the hounds had changed to shrieking, and the horn blew clear and high. Elladan paused a moment to listen. "Sounds like a merry scuffle," he said, smiling quickly. "They will have a tale to tell this evening."

But not he. No tale to tell that evening, no tale to bear home, to wear like a badge. A thrown shoe and a hunt brought short. He would not even follow the stag tomorrow; Súretal was not lamed but would be sorefooted after the long trek home on a bare hoof. Their own party was out of sight, the sound of them fading into the mist. The snow had come. As they led their horses through the wood it began to sift down silently.

The hornsong floated to them again. A long note undulating and shrilling off into eerie silence.

Lord Elladan said, his keen eyes on the distance, "They got him."

Tarcil's feet grew nearly too heavy to lift.

They were alone, making their way toward the last sound of the others, when Súretal stopped stiffly, her head snapping high. She goosed and leapt sideways, scorching the rein through Tarcil's hand. Right out of his fingers it went as she wheeled away and may have disappeared as the boy called wildly after her; it was Elladan who stopped her with a word. Though she hearkened to his fair Elvish voice she was fearful still, and stared hard away up the trail while the air rolled like thunder through her nose.

"Fetch her now," said Elladan softly, watching intently the trees ahead. Tarcil scrambled through the brambles after her. They were thick there, choking around the knees of the bare trees, and where Súretal had crashed he had to navigate more carefully, or else be snagged. Still he foundered for a moment in a snarl of hawthorn, his cloak caught fast, and had to contort himself to try and untangle it.

Later when he tried to recall he could not say for certain what transpired next, except that Súretal bolted in earnest, and the smell hit Tarcil suddenly: the stench of an old, wet corpse. Then he looked up and saw it coming, conjured out of nowhere as if by a spell, black and unbearable and decaying in the face, snow aplume up from its hooves, the peeled tusks brown as bone and stretching out for him.

The thorns clutched him tightly; no time now to tear away. Onward rolled the direboar. His belly as soft as a toad's belly, unguarded to the goring blow. He bared his knife, the handle icy in his grip.

Stand fast. Stand fast and meet it. Do not be afraid.


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: Today I commend to you another impeccable little oneshot by my friend Levade called "Stormtossed". It will make you obsess about Gil-galad for a while, and it might make you cry. He is a fantastic character and Levade sees him with a particular clarity and humanity that I have always enjoyed._

_Thank you so much for following along! Only a short chapter this morning. Out of guilt for that I may stick up another, later on…_

* * *

**VII**

**Elladan**

The great grey stallion struck the boar so hard in the shoulder it felled them both. Elladan was whipped free and skidded in the snow and rolled and came up teeth and knife bared both and winged on that same impetus into the thicket while the two beasts thrashed and floundered together in the snow. The boy had the wits to have begun again to tear himself free of the thorns but still they bound him, his mantle twisted and caught fast. Crashing through the brambles Elladan reached him. He drove the blade up beneath Tarcil's collarbone and with a vicious stroke cut free the snarled cloak.

Shove him. Fling him away with a sharp command. See him begin to flee. Turn and draw the hard line and set the feet and flip the knife to hold like a spear and drive deep when the moment comes. Soon it will come. It comes now. A perversion in the Music, a jangled chord, a _fëa_ rotted and seeping spite. Rank on the spirit, red in the eye. It will not do what boars do; it will not shriek and bluff the charge and seek again some hiding place if they do not hound hard after it. It will gut him down and gorge on his offal if he does not kill it first. This he knows. Now it is here.

The knife in his hand had begun to gleam, a pale and dangerous light. The direboar hooked wildly but Elladan glided to the side and put the blade in once, twice, and had to whirl away again, for the thing as tall as his shoulder slewed round with him and speared for his groin and only a quick contortion kept the tusk out of his belly. The blow still staggered him and now the great weight of the boar rammed his flank and he went down into the snow beneath the teeth and razor hooves though he snaked up and scored the black jowl for the jugular as its head whipped side to side in butchering strokes. The boy would be there still when Elladan was flayed open and could defend him no longer. He had to wound it gravely first.

But then the boar jerked and squealed and jerked again and bellowing flailed at its long snout, the great tusks flinging up sprays of snow. Quick as a heron Elladan dove in for the eye and sank his blade and reared back with one hand and slammed the heel of it against the handle, a mallet to a deadly peg. Into that socket the weapon vanished with a squelch.

The boar collapsed as if its very spirit had been sucked away. Elladan heaved himself from underneath it and scrabbled backwards in the snow, burrowing wildly at the top of his boot for the tiny knife that hid there, the only weapon left at hand, the last defense, the final rally.

But the boar did not stir. Tarcil stood beyond it, shaking like a sapling in stiff wind. The monster as tall as his chin even as it lay dead. His bright dagger stood speared into its bristled barrel, the blood from his diverting blows all slickened down its side.


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: This evening's recommendation is Malaise, by Levade. Another one-shot. If you have any affection for Glorfindel or Elrond, I commend it to you heartily. If you do not, I still commend it to you, because it will cause you to have affection for them._

* * *

**VIII**

**Tarcil**

Tarcil would have stood and stared for a long time, his head light and his stomach roiling, but Lord Elladan caught him across the chest and all but hauled him away from the carcass of the boar, clear of the thicket, into the trees. The snow was deep there and Elladan buckled into it at the foot of a great sycamore and towed the boy down beside him. For a minute they sat without speaking, their breaths together rasping in the air.

His hands were shaking. The fingertips gone white. He felt he might be sick, but his stomach was too empty. The blood of the boar was splashed all over his sleeve. He had thought his liege would be gutted right before his very eyes. For a moment his self-possession fled him and he turned and sank his face into the front of Elladan's cote.

A hand pressed close his head, fingers delving through his hair. Elladan held him fast and above him out of sight the brave knight raised his own short horn and played the death-song himself, a long blast rich with undulation. It wavered and broke off abruptly and Elladan wilted forward. Tarcil drew back and peered up at him.

"My lord…?"

Elladan's hand clapped gently over the top of Tarcil's head. He gave the boy a brother's shake, and laughed a little, though he was trying still to catch his wind.

"We were a handful for him, you and I," he said, and laughed again, and let his own head tip back against the sycamore.

Tarcil turned back to the thicket. The boar had not moved. It was dead, its quills dusted with new snow. The battle was over.

Hoofbeats carried to them through the trees.

"You are wounded?" Tarcil asked, turning back to Elladan, who seemed to have gone greyer since Tarcil had last looked.

"The cavalry is here," Elladan said instead of answering. "Hail them now, they cannot see us from the path."

Tarcil rose and hiked out into the open and spied the riders. The lords Glorfindel and Elrohir, and a third Tarcil did not know, who led Súretal trotting behind on a lead.

"We are here!" he shouted, and watched them wheel and come at a canter.

The boar was a black heap behind him. Lord Elrohir whistled lowly, and crossed to prod the carcass with his spear, though his courser snorted and shied away. Glorfindel leapt down and caught Tarcil's shoulder, and found in the front of his coat the long slash where Elladan had cut him free; it had not nicked his skin but had still sliced right down to the silk, and left his jerkin gaping.

"Please come," said Tarcil, snatching the General's gauntlet and beginning to drag him back. "I think something is wrong."

Glorfindel did not follow, but passed him with long strides and came around the old tree and when Tarcil caught up he was crouched in the snow near Elladan's side. Something in the way he leaned made the boy think he was trying very hard to not lay hands on the young warrior and seek after hidden injuries, but for now he sat on his heels and received the story silently. Elladan told it in a few short phrases, his eyes flicking up to Tarcil when it came time to relay the part the boy had played.

"It would have run out differently, but for that keen Númenorean knife."

Elrohir joined them with the very thing at hand.

"A pair there were," he said, wiping the blade clean upon his cloak. "This one must have looped back around and come up from behind. What sorry scouts you sent out to so miss it, my lord. "

"We have them, nonetheless," said Glorfindel, "and the hounds speak of no others."

Elrohir returned Tarcil his knife, which stank of boar, and left to retrieve Elladan's stallion, who stood a distance away, sagging in one hip, but otherwise unmarked.

Glorfindel turned back to Elladan with narrowed eyes. "Time now for you to tell me where he laid his tusk into you."

Elladan gave a quick sigh, his breath ghosting. His glance fell to the ground on the side away from where Glorfindel crouched. The others leaned across to look, and Tarcil gasped, for the blood stood beneath him in the packed snow, a puddle of it now, and still spreading.

Like an adder Glorfindel struck and rolled the younger knight as the ratter rolls the rat and pinned him in the snow with a knee in his back, a foul word slipping off his tongue as he cast up the bloodied cloak. The indentation Elladan had left at the base of the sycamore was filled with blood, a startling amount, more than Tarcil had seen from a creature still living. He was afraid to see what kind of wound had left it behind.

But Glorfindel by then had laid it bare, and cursed again with more fervor. Tarcil finally beheld it, and the sight made him feel sick. Lord Elladan had twisted to keep the tusk out of his belly but his haunch had borne it instead, an appalling laceration from hamstring to hipbone, flayed right down through the red meat, the bright blood running like a spring. Elladan levered himself up on an elbow, twisting round to try and get a glimpse, and the wound gave a lively gush at his exertion.

"You will _be still,_" Glorfindel snarled, shunting Elladan's shoulders back down into the snow, "or I will make the other side match! Elrohir! Get over here!"

Glorfindel dragged off his white wool mantle and wadded it against Elladan's hindquarter and crushed it down with both hands. Elladan for his part seemed to have succumbed to resignation, or to the weakening drain of his blood sheeting out to melt the snow, for he let his forehead down to settle on his vambrace, and for a while was very still.

Then Elrohir knelt beside them and there was no witticism in his mouth when he raised the sodden corner of the cloak. He went as pale as his bloodied twin. Then he was up and lunging for the horses, ripping the pack from behind his cantle and bearing it back at a run. He tore it open and snatched out a drawstrung packet fat with herbs. At the ready word Glorfindel peeled back the staunching cloak and Elrohir emptied the entire sachet over the wound, and mounded the dried stuff down into that great ravine of flesh, and packed a downy dressing over the whole mess, and bore his weight against it with both palms.

Then Tarcil pulled his eyes away, for Lord Elladan had spoken his name.

He scrambled up and circled 'round the surgeons at their work and fell to his knees near his master's head.

"Nothing there worth the watching," said Elladan with a bare exhale of laughter. He flinched at whatever was happening out of sight, his back hollowing with pain, but then he eased and reached up to hook a finger through the rend in Tarcil's cote. "Did I get you?"

"No, lord. I am not marked. Just a scratch or two, from the thorns."

"You are a brave boy."

"No, lord—"

"Be quiet, squire, I am trying to distract myself. He did not catch you on the pass?"

"No, sir."

"I told you to run."

"Yes, my lord."

Elladan reached up high enough to pat him on his snowstung face. "I am glad you did not heed me, dúnadan."

* * *

_A/N ii: It is probably a canonical divergence to have elves using foul language. Ah, well, I am ever really a writer of Men, who probably do._

_iii: I feel the need to clarify that the nature of Elladan's wound was not part of Levade's requested story criteria; it is entirely the fault of mine, dug out of my own bag of tricks. Her dignity is preserved where Elladan's is not, poor fellow. According to a handful of historical sources, his was a common injury acquired by boar-hunters. What's a writer seeking accuracy supposed to do? *shrug*_


End file.
